Staging last year's World Championships in Eugene "wasn't ideal", says World Athletics President Sebastian Coe ©Getty Images

Staging last year's World Athletics Championships in the United States for the first time - at the rebuilt Hayward Field arena in Eugene, Oregon - "wasn’t ideal", according to World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.

The ambitions behind that landmark decision were articulated In May last year by World Athletics chief executive Jon Ridgeon, who told insidethegames shortly after returning from a trip to Oregon where he had been liaising with the event's home broadcasters NBC: "This is a really important year for us.

"One of the core reasons the Championships were awarded to the United States was to try and use it as a catalyst for growth.

"Clearly with NBC it’s about going beyond their event coverage and making sure we use athletes in their other programming strands so we connect their huge audience with athletes outside the usual athletics 'bubble'.

"It’s about making sure that we introduce athletes and their great stories and the challenge of this summer to the widest possible audience."

But more than a year on, Coe did not appear to have a plethora of positive things to say about the wider impact of the 2022 event.

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, left, and USATF chief executive Max Siegel, pictured at last year's World Championships in Eugen will discuss future collaborations during this month's World Championships in Budapest ©Getty Images
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, left, and USATF chief executive Max Siegel, pictured at last year's World Championships in Eugen will discuss future collaborations during this month's World Championships in Budapest ©Getty Images

Coe told insidethegames during an international media virtual conference: "Moving into the United States - that's a challenge.

"We know it’s a challenge.

"We took that on a few years ago coming from some distance back.

"The Continental Tour events, we didn’t have any and now we have got some good ones and they’re developing.

"But it’s a congested market - everybody wants to be there.

"That’s why we agreed to hold the World Championships in Eugene last year.

"Eugene wasn’t ideal.

"It certainly posed us some challenges around broadcast numbers in Europe.

"We haemorrhaged quite a few millions of broadcasting hours."

The 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene was the most watched in US television history but viewing figures in Europe were disappointing ©NBC
The 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene was the most watched in US television history but viewing figures in Europe were disappointing ©NBC

On the positive side, the Championships was the most-watched edition ever in US television history and more than 146,000 tickets were sold.

Coe added, "This is always a balance, but we have always said we would do what we could to help USA Track and Field.

"It is still the powerhouse of World Athletics.

"And this is something that I will be addressing with the USATF chief executive Max Siegel at next month's World Championships in Budapest when we talk about what it is that we can continue to work together on.

"Because it's really important that the athletes in the US are given every opportunity to compete."

Meanwhile, Hayward Field is preparing to stage the second part of its mission to engage - the final of this year's Wanda Diamond League, which will take place from September 16 to 17.